The Day of Dust
by Wofl
Summary: [Elricest][PG13][End of series spoilers, AU, angst][Ed and Al return to Liore, but the welcome is less than welcome]


Title: The Day of Dust  
Author: wofliron on lj  
Pairing: Elricest  
Rating: PG-13  
Genre: Angst  
Spoilers: slight EoS spoilers  
Warnings: angst, lime, Post-Series AU  
Word Count: 3,670  
Theme: 4 October  
Notes: Written for the elricsexual fluff vs Angst contest. Go team angst! Thanks to Tim and Sami and for holding my hand.

* * *

_Liore fell in a day._

The city rose like termite towers, prideful hands grown callused with the work of rocks. Stones. They moved and gathered and corroded away at the desert until an oasis was forged from sand. This was their_ city, and when the last building was finished, heads tilted up and breath held to see the last stone be put in place, a cheer vibrated like an elephant hum and rose until it stretched out over the desert and nestled itself down into the sands. _We did it,_ they said, and some wept, to feel so vindicated._

They had said it was a waste; that it was a ghost of a ruin, terror rumored in every mention of the city. A boy, a boy_, they cried, and would tell the legend again, of how ruin came to Liore with hair and eyes like the sun they worshiped and a red coat. How this boy had shoved truth into their eyes where no truth had been desired. They believed they could bring back the dead, and this boy squeezed out their way of life like wringing out a damp cloth and showed them lies, and truth, and firmly slapped away the hand of hope that had rested on the city's shoulders._

They were not special; just a drying, dying city struggling to keep from slipping beneath the sands and disappearing all on their own.

A boy!_ Amaze and disbelief still wrenched emotion from their desert dry throats when they sat in circles and shared the myth that was more truth than exaggerations. Because that same boy had left them to ponder what hope was and for a year, they tried to learn; couldn't learn. Soon a new god was erected, breath wasted in glorious shouts of her name and she was their new hope, and inspiration where faith had been waning and they were still the same foolish city they had been when he returned, catastrophe in his veins. Chaos heralded precedence over this city once more, and when he left again, the city was gone._

They mourned and wept, shouts furious with another fallen god, woe a tangible thing resting on their chests and backs, crushing until they could not draw breath and then, then they fell to hands and knees in the sand and brushed aside the wasted earth furiously until they discovered hope in the gutter. With trembling fingers, they brushed it off and put it on and stood, once again like men. _Rebuild,_ they cried! And no one dared wake up, for fear of losing the dream.

They come back to the city in the fall. Edward remembers the ruins; streets deserted, bullet holes peppering the sides of the building in a random display of military fallout. Now, in the ashes, a phoenix has risen; lifted its soot-covered head and cried mercy in the desert. An anthill, living, thriving.

He looks up in awe and wonder and can't help the grin that spreads across his face. It is _thriving_; and thriving means that he hasn't destroyed the city after all, and that is something to be glad for.

"Liore," the older boy says, slinging an arm over Al's shoulder. "Let's go find your memories."

The two step through the city gates together, hope in their hearts and a promise in the air, that perhaps this time, they will find the key to unlocking Alphonse's missing memories. Perhaps this desert oasis will hold the trigger that will send all the years as an animate suit of armor reeling back to the boy.

Not that Edward particularly wants Al to remember that time, that he wants his brother to recall the hollow ache, the fear, the creeping numbness that Alphonse had once described to him, the one time he had dared to ask. But even Edward recognizes how much it hurts Al _not_ to remember; how the boy aches to know what he -_they_- went through, wants to know his older brother.

And when Al looks at him as if his heart is breaking, Edward was helpless to say no.

So they find themselves ghosting through old haunts, towns; some Edward remembers from his time before the world beyond the gate, and some that he has to squint to recall why they'd visited in the first place. Some that shriek horror through shuttered windows and drive the pair from town before he can cause any more mayhem and others that hold a hero's welcome; that beg him to stay and rest and delight in telling Alphonse about what his brother had done for them.

Most don't realize that Al had been there too; had always been there, right beside his brother.

The city is different than Edward remembers, and Al… Well, Al doesn't remember it at all. His fingers clamp down on Edward's coat sleeve and refuse to let go as they make their way through streets that no longer seem so familiar.

The walls rise up around them; dusty stone foraged out of mud and soil, painstakingly erected into something suitable to live in. The streets line themselves with stalls of wares that seem to materialize from nothing, a shoot of life peeking up from beneath ashes. Something where it was thought nothing could thrive.

They step cautious as they forge ahead, eyes dancing from one wary stare to the next until it's no longer safe to keep the people in sight, and so the boy turns his gaze to the buildings themselves, gaze searching out a place of refuge; somewhere they can stay for the night.

Everywhere Edward looks, he catches ghost-tails of scowls and snarls and can't decide it it's his imagination or not until an old lady cackles from behind her booth of lopsided pottery and woven baskets.

"The golden boy will find no welcome here!" she laughs. Edward drags to a halt and turns an incredulous stare to the decrepit bag of bones that rocks back in forth in her chair.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he snaps, though he feels he knows and is suddenly glad that his red coat has found a final resting place in the back of the closet in Rizenbul.

She does not deign to answer; merely laughs again, a horrible howling noise that swirls around him like eddying water.

"Brother?" Al asks, when they've left the woman and her terrible laughter behind, and the _doubt_ that radiates from the single word hurts. Ed has to remind himself that this is not the same Al he willingly sacrificed himself for, this is not the Al that knows every atrocious thing he's done and loves him anyway. T his Al can thrive and live and think on his own, this Al knows something beyond his big brother, has not lived in a world consumed by the raw energy that Edward used to exhume, when they were young and desperate.

This Al is sixteen, lived nearly four years on his own. This is Al beyond the jaded inexhaustible trust that the other Al had shown him.

Edward can't decide if that's a good thing or not; knows it's selfish of him to want that naivety back.

But he smiles and shrugs all the same and makes a crack about senile old woman. Al looks doubtful, but lets it drop all the same and some part of Edward protests that too, because _his_ Al wouldn't have let him get away with that. The old Al would have beaten the truth out of him, if he had to. He had not been beyond tough love, when Edward had needed it.

Ed worries his lip as they walk, lifts his head and looks out over the tops of the buildings and once again hopes that there will be something of his brother to be found within winding maze of the city streets.

He's retuned. _The rumor blazed through city streets aided by the swift wings of scandalous tongues. The hands that clap and press and send forth destruction have found the city for a third time, they said. Eyes like saucers stared wide as the people whispered fervently to their neighbors, warned them to lock their doors and turn away the golden stranger._

But there was also doubt. Another imposter_, the proud city builders declared; another fake. They've had a number of those false strangers seeking words of praise, or perhaps power. None of them found it behind the city gates. And legend of the boy like the sun grew and the people grew conceited when the false stars came to shine and fizzled out._

Liore is the phoenix they declared; and boasted about the scraps they had risen from.

The real Edward was gone, they scolded when chicken-scratch rumors reached the ears of people that believed they had more sense. Been gone five years with nary a whisper to prelude his return.

Surely he was dead.

But a golden ponytail told different tales as it swung back and forth at the back of a man--

(boy! Wasn't he a boy!)__

who walked with a slight limp and a young companion who cast a golden light of his own.

The rumors grew and twisted like monster vines thriving unchecked. Gnarled fingers that clutched at the shadow of doubt. Everywhere, shutters slammed shut and foul, frightened expressions peeked out from gaps in heavy curtains. The people scattered like roaches as the pair made their way through the city.

Some laughed; more simply his themselves away like dirty secrets.

By the time the two reached the only hotel, the city was a den of jackals, harsh barking cries and growls of warning. Hackles stood on end, tails ruffed and held high in a display of vicious lack of fear.

Most certainly imposters come for glory, the city seemed to have decided. They wanted honor and praise and songs lifted in their name, no doubt.

And the city laughed at that, irony pulling laughter from dry cracked lips.

Tomorrow is the holiday,_ they sneered, and let the strangers pass. The Day of Dust, they called it, to commemorate those that had been swallowed by the sand, but really, it was a celebration of their triumph over the golden disaster that had descended upon their city._

Tomorrow_, the city promised themselves. Tomorrow the strangers would see what thanks they heralded for catastrophe._

Edward is glad to leave the ruptured feeling of hostile unrest behind him. He procures a hotel room, doing his best to ignore the strange looks he receives from the man at the front desk and gives Al an unsteady grin and jangles the room key as he turns away from the counter.

There are no other guests around, but a few members of the staff mingle about the lobby as the pair makes their way to the stairs. Edward is relieved when they're gone from sight, twittered sparrow cry whispers left at their backs and sweet silence facing them.

The room is pleasant enough, when they locate it and manage to jimmy the lock open. _Sticky key, it figures,_ Edward's snarking, by the time the lock slides back with a soft pop and his weight sends him sprawling inside the doorway.

"Son of a-" he grouses, but a glance towards Al silences his words before he says anything too callous. Instead, he smirks at the boy. "Nice place, huh?"

"Yeah." The younger shuts the door with a quiet click before turning a raised eyebrow towards his older sibling. "Brother, why is everyone acting funny here?"

"Dunno," Edward shrugs, limping his way over to the bed. His leg hurts; the automail is still fairly new and Edward isn't sure the poor excuses for prosthetics available in the other world didn't do some permanent damage to the nerves in his stump. Either way, they've been walking most of the day, and he's glad to get off his feet. "We'll figure it out tomorrow, okay? We've been walking forever and my leg hurts like a bitch. I'm gonna have a nap."

"Do you need something?" Al frowns and Ed doesn't miss the surreptitious glance towards his leg. It makes him uncomfortable, and Al probably moreso – he still doesn't remember _that night_, the blood and screams, but as long as Al is focusing on that and fails to notice that Edward has avoided the subject of the townspeople entirely, it's alright.

Trust Al to forget everything else in favor of concern towards Ed's health.

"Nah, 'm just tired," Edward groans, flopping back onto the comforter. It's quiet for several minutes. By the time Al realizes that Edward has skipped out of answering his question, the older boy is snoring.

They're up there, _ the city pointed, and voices raised, the skittish peeking out to gaze up at the hotel into which the boy had disappeared. And again, doubt razed across their minds like brushfire._

He said nothing? The so-called brilliant minds couldn't comprehend. All the others appeared like lions, teeth bared and claws at the ready, roars spilling from their lips as they tried to declare themselves king. This one floated in like a tired stone battered by the sea, with nary a word from his lips.

Something was amiss.

And they could do nothing but stare up at their Tower of Babel, tongues and words unable to unlock this mystery. They could only scratch their heads and wonder while they waited for the dawn.

The sun is low in the sky by the time Edward stirs. Orange and red stream in through the window, blending in a medley of sunset fire.

"Hey," he mumbles, rubbing his eyes blearily. Al is at the desk, fingers fumbling with the calendar – the kind with a page for each day. With a lurch, Edward realizes he hasn't known the date for quite some time. "What's today?"

"October third," the younger boy tells him, head turning in Ed's direction. And Edward can't hide the jolt of pain that lances through his gut; he has never been good at covering up his emotions.

He forgot. How can he have forgotten? Carved in his watch, his mind, his fucking soul, and he _forgot_. The one thing that had pushed him forward, kept him from shriveling and crumbling to dust when things seemed so hopeless, for what can one do when hope is lost? Turn back, logic says, but with nowhere to turn to, he had nowhere to go up forward, and that is why he'd never let himself forget.

Even when hope seemed lost, even when he was worlds away, he'd still harbored a place within him to take note of the day, to remember _why_ there was no choice but to dust himself off and pick himself up and _keep going_

He feels hot and cold all at once, as he stares at the calendar in his brother's hands, knows that the day has waned away almost completely and he didn't even so much as _think_ to remind himself of why they were here in the first place; because this lack of memories is his fault too. Without that one crucial night, all the cogs and wheels that had been set into motion would never have begun turning. They would be whole, happy; if not motherless. So it all winds back down to his brilliant blunder – the mistake of children who believed themselves better than God and it's been ten years and he still can't shake this disaster.

"Ed?" A brush of fingers against his flesh arm and Ed is surprised to find he is shaking. "What is it?"

And it suddenly occurs to Edward that this too, is something Alphonse cannot recall, has no idea why simple numbers on a calendar can make his brother tremble the way he is, golden eyes gone dark and murky in the fading sunlight. Edward turns a haunted gaze to Alphonse.

"Do you remember what happened, ten years ago today?" he asks, and can't help the bitter, bitter venom injected into his tone with hollow tipped fangs.

Face falling, brow furrowing in frustration, Al shakes his head and Edward can almost _see_ the anger that radiates from his little brother. How hard it must be, to not understand the one person his brother has looked up to; the one person he wants to know the most.

"We burned down our house," he says, picking his words carefully, slowly. "We did it so that we could move forward and be strong."

He pauses, looks down at his hands, mismatched, ugly things that have seen and caused more blood and death than he will ever be comfortable with. The night falls around them like a heavy curtain, sweeping down to drape over the desert.

"And I've spent ten years looking back," he spits, more poison, leeched from his veins and heart to drip from his mouth like verbal honey, seductive and sweet and guarded by so many deadly bees. "Ten goddamn years, Al."

And he can't stop himself from clutching at Al – his whole life packed into one sixteen year old boy, because Al is everything he's worked and strived and hurt for. And he doesn't even _remember_; a monumental spike driven right down the middle of the relationship.

He forgets, often, that this isn't the same Al, and so he is not expecting the surprise that gasps from Al's mouth when Ed's lips find his brother's neck, pressing kisses against soft skin, moving up towards the younger boy's lips.

They used to do this, before, when Al was steel and Ed was a troubled desperate thing clinging to comfort to maintain his sanity. With his brother's touches, as frigid and hard-edged as they were, coming from a metal suit of armor, they were still reassurance that he was something more than a monster. Something that could be held and loved and Al had given that to him willingly.

But now there is another barrier, and Ed pulls back, brow furrowing. "I—" wide eyes, horrified that he will drive his stranger-brother away, because this Al knows better, it seems, sees how terrible he is for having this insatiable lust. "I'm sorry, Al."

Hands, then, drawing him close before he can withdraw into his shell, hands that run over his face, through his hair and closely followed by lips that suck the sorrow and shame from his lips. Hands that explore his flawed flesh until they are buried deep in Edward's boxers, and Edward's mind is a blank slate not even enough sense to question _why._

How many hours they spend, laying in each other's embrace, comfort and worry clashing in Edward's mind, he doesn't know.

"I can't even pretend to remember what you—we went through, Ed," the younger begins at last, as the window grows gray with the coming dawn, "but I _want_ to. And for that, I need you. I need honesty, not guilt."

He kisses Ed then, lips pressing hard against Ed's and Ed feels as if his brother is trying to suck the words from his mouth, taste truth on his tongue. Outside, the sun raises its ugly head, beams of brilliant tropical hues caressing the desert and outside the city stirs.

The time has come_, they shouted, voices frenzied as crowds sought to gather, to raise up praise to their deity. They prepared to sing bold and give thanks for mercy and perseverance._

For the past four years, they had gathered in the square to hold their celebration, but on the fifth year, the crowds flocked to the hotel—a great tower where imposters, or perhaps the genuine disasters had holed up.

This was the city's gift to them, they announced, and joined together as a single unit. They were a bundle of branches that could no longer be broken, now that they had been gathered and bound; joined permanently in their common tragedy. They had unified and become strong and no boy with hair that shone like the dawn was going to take that from them.

Not again.

As the sun climbed over the horizon, the city lifted their heads and started to sing.

The shouts rise like balloons turned loose, drifting up and up until the pressure inside defeats the atmosphere and bursts with a crescendo of noise and dissipates into nothing.

The words are awful things, and the boys move to the window to look out across the people that have gathered in mass below. Their song is of a monster colored gold and red, a monster that took and broke and left and came back and repeated the process and they cry out the monster's name, celebrate his fall into nothing.

Horror drifts in the window as the harmony dissolves into the chaos of celebration. _The Day of Dust_ they repeat, again and again, and Edward feels sick to look down at them.

"Brother," and there is a horrified moisture collecting in Al's eyes, mind trying to wrap around the revelation. This disaster they spoke of, this monster – that was his brother. His _brother_ had brought that here, had driven these people to desperation and despair.

For what?

"What have you _done_?"

Edward does not answer; simply stares at Al, any diction of defense a fishbone in his throat. Al doesn't _remember_. He doesn't know about the exhaustion and desperation and the frenzyfurymindwhirlingfeethavetookeepgoingsearchingthismaybetheonlychance. He can't fathom the overwhelming _drive_ that had wrapped its teeth around Edward and _chewed_. Al doesn't remember the bomb, or the man with no arms or _anything_. 

But worse, worse than not knowing or not recalling is the lack of trust. Because Al doesn't ask for details, doesn't ask, even, if it's _true_. Al has asked what he has done and never even paused to consider that maybe he had done nothing at all.

And _that_ is what plunges into his chest, invades and squeezes until he can't breathe. 

Liore be damned. Damned!

And himself too, because if the truth be told, he has brought it upon himself.

The End


End file.
